The Nearbound Daily is now officially the ELG Insider Daily! 

Welcome to the ELG Insider Daily—the #1 newsletter in the world keeping thousands of GTM professionals on top of the latest Ecosystem-Led principles, tactics, and trends. Join the movement here.

SHARE YOUR INSIGHTS

The Future of Revenue survey

Pavilion and Crossbeam are surveying 500+ GTM leaders to better understand the strategies and tactics teams are using to drive revenue. Share your strategies and experiences and get early access to the benchmark-setting report.

Take the survey here. 

PRINCIPLES

Why your partner ecosystem is at full power right now

“People don't buy products anymore because they like the UI, or because that sales rep bought them the best round of golf. People buy products because of how they interoperate with the other products and services they're already using. 

The number one input to someone making a technology decision is how compatible it is with the existing pieces of the stack that they already have. It doesn't matter what vertical you're in.

The API economy has created this massive unbundling cycle where no one buys a shrink wrap piece of software and runs it in isolation anymore. Everything is about interoperability and APIs and the ways in which data works its way through the different pieces of your business. 

What that means is, as someone trying to sell software, you can look at a given buyer and know what else is going on in terms of what they bought, when and in what order, and you can understand a lot about your alignment with them.

Are they in your ideal customer profile? How should you position and sell to them? And is now the right time for you to be doing that? 

There's only one source of data that'll tell you those things, and it's your partner ecosystem.”

— Crossbeam CEO Bob Moore on the webinar “Creating a Partnership Ecosystem” from SalesIntel. Watch the full recording here.

TACTICS

Easy account mapping win for retention and vetting

Account mapping with your partners in a tool like Crossbeam or Reveal can instantly surface actionable, high-impact insights. One of those areas of insights is the customer <> customer overlap on the Account Mapping Matrix — aka the list of current customers you share with a partner.

There are a lot of use cases for this information, but we’ll look at three of the most common:

Use case #1: Vetting integrations 

The number of shared customers is your potential user base for an integration with this partner. 

1. Compare. Compare this customer overlap number with other partners to know which ones to prioritize. 
2. Validate a potential integration is attractive to your customers. Identify a group of customers in your overlap list who have good customer health scores and who your CSMs have good relationships with. Get on the phone with these customers to validate that the market has a need for this integration. These customers can also become potential alpha/beta testers and early adopters later on. 

Use case #2: Co-marketing / integration adoption to drive retention 

If you already have an integration, this is the audience of people who should have it installed. We can use this list to deliver targeted co-marketing. 

1. Create a co-marketing campaign. Most start with a simple email highlighting the benefits of the integration with a link to install or get a demo. You can also produce a webinar explaining how to use the integration or source joint case studies to then send to this list. When you get really  ambitious, try an IRL event. 
2. Import the list into your marketing platform. Crossbeam has integrations with HubSpot, Active Campaign, Marketo, and other marketing automation platforms. Use them to send your targeted list to the right place. 
3. Send your co-marketing campaign to your shared customers. 4. Send the list to CSMs along with a template email of the integration’s benefits. Remember: more integration adoption usually leads to high retention and expansion rates. 

Use case #3: Cross-selling and account expansion 

You may share the same customer as your partner, but you may be selling into different departments. 

1. Share the list of shared customers with your AEs. Ask: are they attempting to expand any of these accounts? 
2. Share the expansion targets with your counterpart. Ask if they are willing to introduce their AE/CSM to your AE/CSM. This is easier if you are both sharing an “account owner” field. 
3. Have your AE/CSMs get on a call or enter a shared Slack DM/channel where your AE can ask for intros into other departments, any notable changes to leadership, and other key sales intel that would facilitate a higher contract renewal. 
4. Offer to reciprocate.

Read about more easy account mapping wins in The Crossbeam Guide to Account Mapping.

UPCOMING EVENT

INBOUND 24

Join us in Boston this September at the industry's leading event for thought leaders across marketing, sales, customer success, revenue operations, and beyond.

If you want to meet the newly merged Crossbeam team and get the most up-to-date intel on our merger with Reveal, pre-book time with the team at the event.  

Stuff you don't want to miss!

• September 10th — RevOps Playbook for High-Growth Companies — Tessa Whittaker, VP of Revenue Operations at ZoomInfo, and Mollie Bodensteiner, VP of Operations at Sound will share how to start and identify your RevOps approach. Organized by RevGenius. Save your spot here.  
• October 14 -16 — GTM2024 — Join Pavilion at The Fairmont in Austin, TX to get ahead on your 2025 GTM strategy, learn about market trends, and boost your GTM strategy. Get your ticket here.

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